Air

Part after-hours/early morning comedown album and part French retro-futuristic mod pop,this 1998 album was embraced by all sides. The keyboards and basslines work out a minimal funk rhythm, while the vocoders and breathy vocals create a new genre of post-disco folk pop. A great album from beginning to end.

Air's Nicolas Godin and Jean Benoit Dunckel are a couple of cerebral keyboard geeks from
Versailles, France, where they obviously don't get out of the studio much. Their space-pop
debut, Moon Safari, is a truly obsessive hommage to easy listening, a sublime Eurocheese
omelet. They build their music out of classic '60s French schlock: bongos, castanets,
vintage electric piano, dream-weaver synths and shagcarpet organ straight from... More >

As a rock yeoman in good standing, I direct postrock chauvinists to Simon Jeffes's Brian Eno-sponsored Penguin Cafe Orchestra, whose similar (albeit unamplified) hipster kitsch can now be found in the New Age bin. For the nonce, however, the comfy-funk bass, space-age sound effects, and moments of cool femme treacle on this moist piece of patisserie are good-humored enough to win over even an old-ager who remembers when easy listening was worth hating. (Grade - A-)